The Well-Wisher

Gillonne de Beauregard had been well brought up, so when her husband, the Comte de Claumont, told her he intended that they should spend their wedding night in fleeing from France to Holland, she was docile. She thought she knew that he loved her passionately - otherwise, presumably he would not have married her, for though she was a ward of the Duchesse des Amars, she was without influence or dowry. Gillonne's adjustment to the Dutch way of life was complicated by growing perplexity - about her husband's real feelings towards her, his motive for urging her into friendship with the family of the enormously rich Huguenot refugee M. Hugaut, and his perversity in forcing her into the company of the Vicomte de Plestin, who in France had made it plain that though he loved Gillonne, and knew she loved him, he could never marry her.